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Class Act

Class Act

A picture’s worth a thousand words.

Professor Andrew Williams invited sketchnote guru Mike Rohde into his class for an unusual assignment. Williams wanted to teach his engineering students to add empathy for clients to their design thinking. Taking notes is old school. Draw them. Take a pen — not a pencil — make it permanent, commit. Vary typography based on context. Highlight important ideas with simple icons — a smiling face, a furrowed brow — to show emotion or movement and reflect your thought in that moment. “Sketchnotes capture thinking, ideas. They are not fancy, not art,” Rohde explained. “Now try it.” Students raised their pens and went to work.